"Each alone a fox in cunning,
You grow stupid when you meet."
But as he saw that the poor were eager to serve Peisistratus, while the rich held back from cowardice, he went away, after saying that he was wiser than the one class, and braver than the other; wiser, namely, than those who did not understand what was going on, and braver than those who did understand, but did not dare to oppose the despotism with which they were threatened.
The people carried the proposal, and would not be so mean as to make any stipulation with Peisistratus about the number of his body-guard, but permitted him to keep as many as he pleased until he seized the Acropolis. When this took place, the city was convulsed; Megakles and the other descendants of Alkmaeon fled, but Solon, although he was now very old and had no one to stand by him, nevertheless came into the market-place and addressed the citizens, reproaching them for their folly and remissness, and urging them to make a final effort to retain their freedom. It was then that he made the memorable remark that, in former days it would have been easier for them to have prevented despotism from appearing amongst them, but that now it would be more glorious to cut it down, when it had arrived at its full growth. However, as no one listened to him, because of the general terror, he went home, armed himself, and took his post in the street outside his door, saying, "I have done all I could for my country and her laws." After this he remained quiet, though his friends urged him to leave Athens. He, however, wrote poems reproaching the Athenians—
"Through your own cowardice you suffered wrong,
Blame then yourselves and not the gods for this;
'Twas you yourselves that made the tyrant strong,
And rightly do you now your freedom miss."
XXXI. At this many of his friends told him that the despot would surely put him to death, and when they asked him what he trusted to, that he performed such mad freaks, he answered, "To my age." But Peisistratus, after he became established as sovereign, showed such marked favour to Solon that he even was advised by him, and received his approval in several cases. For he enforced most of Solon's laws, both observing them himself and obliging his friends to do so. Indeed, when accused of murder before the court of the Areopagus, he appeared in due form to stand his trial, but his accuser let the case fall through. He also made other laws himself, one of which is that those who are maimed in war shall be kept at the public expense. Herakleides says that this was done in imitation of Solon, who had already proposed it in the case of Thersippus. But Theophrastus tells us that it was not Solon, but Peisistratus, who made the law about idleness, by means of which he rendered the city more quiet, and the country better cultivated.
Solon also attempted to write a great poem about the fable of 'Atlantis,' which he had learned from the chroniclers of Sais particularly concerned the Athenians, but he did not finish it, not, as Plato says, for want of leisure, but rather because of his advanced age, which made him fear that the task was too great for him. His own words tell us that he had abundance of leisure—
"Old I grow, but ever learning,"
and,
"Venus and Bacchus are all my care,
And the Muses, that charm the hearts of men."
Plato eagerly took in hand the scheme of the 'Atlantis,' as though it were a fine site for a palace, which had come to be his by inheritance, still unbuilt on. He placed in the beginning of it such splendid entrance-halls and vestibules as we find in no other tale or legend or poem, but, as he began the work too late, he died before he was able to finish it; so that the more we enjoy what he has written, the more we grieve over what is lost. As the temple of Olympic Zeus among the temples of Athens, so the 'Atlantis' is the only one among Plato's many noble writings that is unfinished.